While no one should be harmed while being provided with healthcare, yet every single minute 5 patients die worldwide because of unsafe care and these deaths can be prevented by a simple commitment that ensures safe care, the World Health Organisation (WHO) observed, marking World Patient Safety Day on September 17.
According to the WHO, four out of every 10 patients are harmed during primary and ambulatory healthcare.
The most detrimental errors are related to diagnosis, prescription and the use of medicines. Medication errors alone cost an estimated $42 billion annually. Unsafe surgical care procedures cause complications in up to 25% of patients resulting in 1 million deaths during or immediately after surgery annually.
The World Patient Safety Day established by the 72nd World Health Assembly in May 2019 is an effort to “bring in a patient safety culture that promotes partnership with patients, encourages reporting and learning from errors, and creates a blame-free environment where health workers are empowered and trained to reduce errors,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said in a statement.
Advocating that greater patient involvement is the key to safer care, WHO noted that millions of patients are harmed each year due to unsafe healthcare worldwide resulting in 2.6 million deaths annually in low- and middle-income countries alone. The personal, social and economic impact of patient harm leads to losses of trillions of dollars worldwide.
Asserting that patient harm in healthcare was unacceptable, WHO is now calling for urgent action by countries and partners around the world. Patient safety and quality of care are essential for delivering effective health services and for achieving universal health coverage.
“Investment in improving patient safety can lead to significant financial savings. The cost of prevention is much lower than the cost of treatment due to harm. As an example, in the United States alone, focused safety improvements led to an estimated $28 billion in savings in Medicare hospitals between 2010 and 2015. Engaging patients can reduce the burden of harm by up to 15%, saving billions of dollars each year,” WHO noted.
On the very first World Patient Safety Day WHO is prioritizing patient safety as a global health priority and urging patients, healthcare workers, policy makers and the healthcare industry to “Speak up for patient safety!”.
Meanwhile cities around the world will light up monuments in orange colour to show their commitment to safety of patients on September 17. These include the Jet d’Eau in Geneva, the Pyramids in Cairo, the Kuala Lumpur Tower, The Royal Opera House in Muscat, and the Zakim bridge in Boston.